


Red is the Cruelest Colour

by icelovesfire



Category: Beverly Hills 90210 (1990)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Heartbreak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 10:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29348634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icelovesfire/pseuds/icelovesfire
Summary: In which a letter box, a hairbrush and a tube station led to their bitter end. Starring B/D in the imagined revelation of what the hell happened in London. One-Shot.
Relationships: Dylan McKay/Brenda Walsh
Kudos: 2





	Red is the Cruelest Colour

_Rewatching the early seasons of BH90210 and dreading the convoluted storyline to come, these two idiots snaked their way forward to argue over what really happened in London whilst simultaneously revealing the reason behind Dylan’s soulmate search in the ninth season. (I KNEW a rewatch was a bad idea, but alas.) Trying to fight the pesky plotline to work on other writings sadly failed. Thus, the first and potentially only B/D - Bandits - Brylan - McWalsh (just throwing it out there) fic by Dreams Shape the World was created as a one-shot._

_Note: Details of setting are written in British English, due to the series’ choice of location. The rest of the writing will be in US English to match the characters themselves and the series in which they were created._

_It was always Brenda._

xx

Miles beneath an overcast sky, on the northern end of London, the city’s swiftest cyclist had stirred a pile of stray fallen leaves at precisely half past nine in the morning. Around about eleven, indigo wellies trotting underneath the neighborhood postman crunched a succession of crimson leaves. At exactly one o’clock, an older gentleman handed a twenty-pound note to a schoolchild to dispose of the piles dominating his front garden. Just as the symphonic bells of Big Ben would chime twice over by the Palace of Westminster in the city’s central area, his dutiful teenage neighbor finished and moved to the next flat. By three o’clock, the stack of leaves clinging to a corner letter box remained the only stray ones on the cul-de-sac.

They, too, were lost under suede knee-high boots that kicked furiously as their owner flung carefully written postcards into the letter box.

Premature postcards, she thought irately.

Dark hair stood out against fuschia ivy splashed along the exterior of her flat. Tousled long strands rippled over the woman’s woolen shoulders as she fumbled for her keys.

“Hey, Bren, wait up. You’re going too fast.”

She ignored the panting voice sprinting toward Flat 21, jiggling her key into the lock without success.

The brunette tried again.

“Come on!” she said, scowling at the copper key that frequently required multiple attempts to be of use.

“Bren,” he caught up to her, placing one hand on her shoulder and the other on the doorknob, “let me.” 

Neglecting to mask her evident ire, she handed the key to her boyfriend and hurtled inside the moment he released the stubborn lock. 

“Brenda, talk to me,” he said, following her into the bedroom while she changed into a more comfortable ensemble.

“There’s nothing to talk about, Dylan,” Brenda Walsh replied, glancing at a family picture taped to the vanity mirror. The entire Walsh brood, grandparents included, smiled down at the camera lens from a snow capped Minnesota hill. 

Only a few days later, her cousin Bobby crashed into the tree that would cost him his legs - but not his abilities.

The ecstatic father of three children, Bobby Walsh brought along his wife and firstborn to visit his younger cousin during her second year in London. He’d successfully completed his fourth year as a sports commentator in St. Paul after graduating from Kansas State. The family had been rather befuddled upon Bobby’s announcement of a Kansas move, but agreed he’d made the right decision when he’d been introduced to future wife Livia by a mutual friend.

“Nothing to talk about?” Dylan McKay replied skeptically. “Bren, I just chased you halfway across northern London.”

“No one asked you to do that, Dylan,” she pointed out.

“Well, excuse me for caring,” he said mockingly.

“Caring? Dylan! I swear I have never been more humiliated in my life.”

“I don’t get why you’re so upset, Brenda. It was a question with a simple yes or no answer. You didn’t have to complicate it by leaving the theatre in a huff and testing my cross-country skills.”

“Dylan, I’m an actress. It’s what I do. You’ve known that since our first year together. I’ve never dreamt of anything more. And as an actress, I kiss men on stage and sometimes, those men become my friends backstage. What do you expect me to do, only work with women?”

He crooked his head at her, the shadow of a small smile skipping across pursed lips.

“Dylan. I’m serious.”

“So am I, Bren.”

“Then this isn’t about Euston at all,” the short brunette said, opening clenched fists into the air as her hazel eyes glanced upward in vexation. 

“Euston. What kind of a name is Euston?” Dylan chortled, his own hands remaining firmly in denim clad pockets. Ordinarily, she couldn’t keep those hands away from the hem of her clothing.

Brenda answered with a withering gaze.

“It’s Irish,” she answered.

“Is he Irish?” Dylan asked.

“Why, do you have a problem with the Irish?”

“Come on, Brenda, you know I don’t,” said the man whose surname likely did stem from the country in question.

She could hear the warning in his voice, a clear indication to cease their quarrel before it infiltrated the atmosphere and annihilated any semblance of a happy ending.

“He’s Welsh, if you must know,” she said in a voice dripping with disdain of his query.

“Ah. Welsh. A Welsh man with the same name as a tube station.”

“Dylan!”

“What? Euston Station. It’s a literal station, Bren,” he defended, sliding one hand out of his pocket to raise in the air as his leather shoulders moved into a shrug.

“I know Euston is a station, Dylan. I also know there are at least ten states with a city named Dillon and in Canada, too,” she scowled.

“It isn’t even the same spelling, Brenda.”

“Well, aren’t you the geography genius.”

“I can’t believe we’re fighting over a Welsh guy named Euston,” Dylan said, free hand now roaming over his temple whilst a shake of his head flopped about styled hair.

“Why not?” Brenda answered. “You’re the one who thinks I’m sleeping with him.”

“I never said that!” he exclaimed, both hands aligning to cover his face as he threw himself against their headboard.

“You said and I quote, ‘Brenda, are you sleeping with him?’” 

“Slept! I said slept! I asked if you _slept_ with him,” Dylan corrected, flinging around a fluffed pillow for emphasis. 

“And I don’t see how that’s any of your damn business,” Brenda bristled, picking up her hairbrush to detangle the blustery day.

“I walk in and this guy has his hands all over my girl in a dark theatre. What am I supposed to think?”

“It was a hug, Dylan! He gave me a hug after our performance that you said was great.”

“It was great, Bren. You were phenomenal. You always are,” Dylan replied. 

“But not so phenomenal that I can be trusted when I accept a hug from a friend who just happens to be of the opposite sex. You never had a problem with me hugging Steve.”

“That’s Steve, Brenda. He isn’t your type.”

“And Euston is?” she asked, dropping the hairbrush in her vanity drawer as she stared him down in the mirror.

“Well...yeah,” Dylan hesitated, his reflection peering at the backside he wished were lying unclothed beside him, “I mean, you know, he’s got the -”

“What? He’s got the what, Dylan?”

The taller man stood as he exhaled.

“The accent. He’s got an accent, Bren,” he mumbled.

She slowly stood from the cushioned chair, stunned as though a colossal iceberg had materialized and collided into her chest.

Maybe it had.

“Oh my god,” she stated, “oh my god!”

A flicker of apology appeared in his dark brown eyes, dissipating before she could observe the sentiment.

“Rick. This is about Rick!” Brenda exclaimed, more incensed than he had seen her in years.

“Bren -” he started.

“I can’t believe you would go there! Almost two years together in London, one millisecond hug from Euston Vaughn and it all comes back to my high school fling in Paris with a guy from freaking Wisconsin who had a basic knowledge of French.”

“Brenda -” he tried again, shaking slightly at her deduction.

“I could remind you of your own fling that summer, Dylan,” she seethed, “but I won’t because this isn’t about high school mistakes and it isn’t about our exes.”

“Then what is it about, Bren?”

“You. Me. Above all, your utter lack of faith in us.”

“Brenda, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Dylan, don’t you get it? You don’t trust me.”

“I do trust you, Brenda! It’s other people I don’t trust,” he explained, reaching out to her.

“No. Dylan. You don’t. Maybe you never did. And I can’t be with someone who doesn’t trust me just because he might be the love of my life.”

He sucked in a deep breath, hands retreating back to the insides of his pockets.

“What are you saying, Brenda?” he managed in an even tone bordering on a whisper, allowing her the same despondent look he’d carried after their first breakup in the early days of their complicated relationship.

“I’m saying that maybe this whole thing was a mistake,” she replied slowly, closing her eyes in defeat.

“Hugging Euston?” Dylan asked, his voice hopeful. “I’d say.”

“No, Dylan. This. Us. Getting back together,” she answered, “whatever we’ve fooled ourselves into thinking while you’ve been here.”

Once, Dylan had been jostled under a mammoth wave after experiencing an almost surreal high from surfing. 

The impact of the wave was minimal compared to the feel of Brenda’s words.

“Fooled ourselves into what? Being in love? Brenda, I love you,” he squeaked.

“I love you, too, Dylan. But once again, love isn’t enough. It’s never enough with us, is it? Dylan, you were so lost after Toni died. You told me yourself, you ran to the place you thought you’d feel safest after those months you spent in Colombia and Scotland when you left Beverly Hills.

I was shocked to see you. I was happy. My life was going great - is great; in fact, it’s wonderful- and I missed sharing that with a friend. I had friends here, lots of friends, but it’s you, you know? Part of the old gang, one of the first friends I made in Beverly Hills. You’re the only person who used to know my twin better than I did. I wanted to be your friend again. And for a while, we were and it was great.”

“It was terrific, Bren,” he cut in, “and the night you let me kiss you was even more terrific. This past year has been incredible.”

“Has it, Dylan? Has it?” she scrutinized, counting on one hand the incidences of the past two months. “Last month, it was the cheek kiss from Ernesto. Two weeks ago, you were upset when I stayed late to run lines with Shane. And when I said hi to Carter on Saturday when we ran into him at Skoob, I swear you looked ready to overturn the nearest potted plant.”

“I just don’t understand why you have to be so close with attractive, affectionate men, Brenda!” he shouted, brewing frustration beginning to boil. “Aren’t Londoners supposed to be standoffish?”

“The same way rich kids from Beverly Hills are supposed to be vapid snobs?” she countered, voice thick with an Artic chill.

Dylan glared.

“Nice one, Brenda. Real nice.”

“So I guess Steve and David aren’t attractive, affectionate men,” she argued.

“Like I said, Steve is Steve. And David; well, you wouldn’t go after your friend’s ex, Bren. It isn’t you.”

She stared.

“You wouldn’t go after Donna’s ex,” he corrected, “and you never went after me. I searched you out. Hell, if you had gone after me, we could’ve reunited sooner. If you’d shown up at the Bel Age, if you’d wanted to be more than friends at the pier, if you’d called just once when you went to London.”

“I’d just found out from Dad about your financial crisis, Dylan! Was I supposed to call collect? Pass off the bill to my parents or to you? I barely talked to my own family that first year with the astronomical phone bill. You could have written.”

“Written what, Bren? About broken promises? Distant applause? My utter failure at letting your dad stop a scam artist from taking all my money? The stupid belief that I’d found a family outside of you Walshes? An overpowering sensation that I’d lost everyone who ever mattered, most of it my fault? The continuing struggle to get sober, which, by the way, I had no intention of doing?”

“Yes,” she stated, “I could have heard it from you instead of Brandon and Valerie.”

“You said you wouldn’t be in London forever, Brenda.”

“Exactly, Dylan! You didn’t trust that I would come home. You didn’t trust that I’d do one year at RADA and return to Beverly Hills. You wanted to do the long-distance thing when we almost moved back to Minnesota, but not when I extended my stay at RADA. You automatically assumed that I would never be back and instead of writing to me about it or initiating any kind of discussion, you hopped into bed with yet another one of my friends.”

He groaned, regret filling his system at the drunken trysts with Valerie Malone.

Sure, she’d been hot, and damn, could she kiss - she wasn’t half-bad in bed, either - but Brenda was right. Val was her friend from childhood and the thought somehow didn’t cross his mind at the time.

Or maybe it did. 

“Brenda, where do you live? Where have you lived for four years?” he asked, gesturing helplessly around the flat.

“Well, maybe I figured there wasn’t a reason to come home when I didn’t hear from you or any of my friends,” she murmured.

“What do you want from me, Brenda? Do you wanna show up five years from now at the West Bev tenth reunion and act like we never existed? Do you want me to run back to Kelly? After all the time we’ve spent together in this place, in our place, is that what you want?” Dylan asked, a hint of hurt peeking through layered exasperation.

“Sure, Dylan. Run back to Kelly not even two months after she and Brandon broke up so you can have her all to yourself. It isn’t as if my brother, your former best friend, was going to marry her or anything and then the four of us were gonna bond on some wild adventure. No, forget all of that and run to her. Great idea.”

“Fine! If that’s what you expect me to do, then I may as well go ahead and do it.”

“That makes no sense, Dylan.”

“You don’t make sense, Bren.”

He peered into her soulful hazel eyes, swearing they held a sheen of clear crystal begging to topple.

If he weren’t so nettled, he would have gathered her into his arms like he had in the Lyceum and almost every day since.

Every day until that bastard took off to the Czech Republic with his girl.

“You’re right, Dylan. We don’t make sense. We’re just an abstract illusion started by two kids a long time ago, picked up again by two adults across the ocean.”

“Brenda. That is not what I meant.”

“We can’t even be friends,” she sighed, dejectedly relocating to the sitting room.

“Bren, that’s not true,” he pleaded as he followed close behind, “you’re my best friend. You always have been.”

“And you’re my best friend - or, at least, I thought you were. But best friends are supposed to trust each other and you don’t even trust me with my scene partners. What kind of life would that be, Dylan? What kind of marriage? I don’t deserve to have my every relationship carefully vetted by you.”

“Do you honestly think I would do that?” Dylan asked, blatantly disconcerted. His breath hitched slightly at her mention of marriage, largely due to the miniature velvet box tucked into the lining of his hanging raincoat.

“Isn’t that what you’re doing?” Brenda asked. “Ernesto, Shane, Carter and Euston. The only male friends I can have are Steve and David? And don’t get me started on Stuart.”

“Dammit, Brenda, really? We’re going to talk about Stuart now? You gonna bring up our entire past?” Dylan fumed, brown gaze silently pleading with hers to forget her failed trip to the Vegas chapel and his consequential jealousy.

He told her then that marrying Stuart Carson would be the end of any future they may have had. Brenda rejected Stuart at the altar, finalized the break up in Palm Springs and the only future that resulted between them was an intimate night in Dylan’s place before she left for the Royal Dramatic Academy of Arts in London.

She’d nearly forgotten their evening together by the time he appeared at the Lyceum, right on cue to watch her only performance of _Jesus Christ, Superstar_. A bout of the flu had sent the lead home, with Brenda the understudy stepping in at the last minute.

She didn’t know what shocked her more about that night - getting the chance to play her first lead, or seeing him walk back into her life as if he’d never left.

Brenda had since held many lead roles in various performances across London, Copenhagen, Edinburgh and Berlin, with Dylan often joining her.

In the last two-week tour to Prague, he’d had to stay behind to meet with a potential publishing company. Dylan was noticeably perturbed when he learned fellow RADA alum Shane Wachinski and his sparkling emerald eyes would be accompanying Brenda, instead.

And then, in the manner of an impending snowfall that would transition to fifty inches of snow in Minneapolis, it began.

Dylan’s envy returned with vicious speed.

“No, we aren’t. But that’s my point, Dylan. You didn’t like Stuart, you don’t like Shane, Carter rubs you the wrong way for some inexplicable reason, you can barely tolerate Ernesto and now you’ll undoubtedly be against Euston, too - who, by the way, is engaged to a distant cousin of Princess Alexandra - just because he wanted to hug a friend. I love Steve and David, really I do, but I love people, Dylan. All kinds of people. And yeah, if a guy wants to be my friend, then I’m going to be his friend. I thought you could handle it, but you obviously can’t.”

His lips curled into a snarl. 

“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t handle, Brenda.”

“I’m tired, Dylan. I’m knackered,” she said.

At his blank look, she clarified.

“Exhausted. I’m exhausted.”

“Fine,” he replied, moving to press a kiss on her cheek despite their tension and his fury. “Get some sleep and we’ll pick this up again later.”

“No. Dylan, I’m tired of this,” Brenda explained, burying her chin into the scarlet sweater his mother sent for her twenty-third birthday.

Dylan’s hands leapt around her shoulders.

“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking, don’t do it. Bren, please don’t do it. We can get through this. I know we can.”

“We aren’t kids anymore. I’m tired of fighting with you, fighting over you, fighting to keep you off of other men when you’re convinced they might be flirting. I deserve better than spending the rest of my life fighting,” Brenda gasped through a choked sob.

“That’s what love is, Brenda! It’s fighting to recover lost love and fighting to be with that person every day. It’s fighting lecherous men for your girl.”

“No. Dylan, it isn’t. You think it is because it’s all you’ve known, but I’ve seen my parents. I saw my grandparents, I watched my aunt and uncle. There’s more to love than quarreling and jealousy, Dylan. And yeah, no relationship is perfect, not even theirs, but not everyone has to defend a hug from a friend. I don’t wanna be out there running lines with my scene partner and wondering if I’ll have to explain myself to you when I get home for doing my job.”

“Brenda, if you do this, you will be responsible for the end of us. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive you,” Dylan managed through his warble.

“And if I don’t, we’ll still end up miserable and then we’ll start to hate each other. I don’t want to hate you, Dylan.”

“I don’t want to hate you, Bren,” he echoed, capturing her solemn gaze with his intense stare.

“Then you should leave,” she said definitively, “before we forget who the hell we are.”

Crestfallen, he removed his hands from her small frame.

“If that’s what you want,” he stated flatly, fighting to keep his tone free of the dispirited emotions pervading his inner thoughts.

“It’s never about what I want, Dylan,” she said.

Dejection rapidly transforming into rage, he threw open the hall cupboard and grabbed at the black duffle bag lying under Brenda’s multicolored ice-skates. 

Furiously blinking away the tears, he stomped into their bedroom and began haphazardly tossing in his possessions.

He didn’t have much.

“Dylan,” Brenda said as she followed, “you don’t have to leave now. It’s gonna be dark soon. You can stay until you’ve made new living arrangements, or at least have one more night together.”

“Why, so we can have one more romp in the sheets before you throw me out? You want me gone; I’m gone, Brenda.”

“Where are you gonna go?” she asked, torn between anger and worry.

“What the hell does it matter to you where I go? I’ll crash in a hotel, find a seat in Gatwick, catch a train to Amsterdam or sleep on a bench in the Underground. Might meet a nice bloke named Euston,” he barked.

“I’m not allowed to care about you?” Brenda asked, inhaling deeply to stifle the tear she silently prayed would be overlooked in his anger.

She promised herself aged nineteen that she would never cry over Dylan McKay again. If she did, she swore that he would never be permitted to see it.

Just another broken promise, she inwardly sighed.

The winding coastal road of their relationship was littered in broken promises.

“If you cared about me, you wouldn’t have told me to leave, Brenda!” he yelled.

“Dylan, I’m doing this because I care about you,” she said.

“Yeah, right,” Dylan chortled. “The same way you cared about me when you kissed Rick.”

Brown eyes glowered into equally infuriated, constantly changing hazel eyes.

“What, only you can bring up ancient history tonight?” Dylan asked mockingly, rifling through her desk for his first editions.

“You started it!” 

“I never mentioned Rick, Brenda. You did!” 

“Right, because I met plenty of guys at West Beverly High with accents,” she jeered, “and fucked every single one of them!”

Dylan paused in the middle of looking over her shelves for additional knick-knacks acquired during his stay in London.

“Are you telling me, after all this time,” he said through gritted teeth, “that you fucked Rick?”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all, Dylan, but it’s clearly what you’re choosing to believe,” Brenda replied, noticeably defeated.

“Now you’re telling me what I believe?” he growled, zipping up the duffle. “That’s it. I’m outta here. Have a nice life, babe.”

“You, too,” she responded quietly.

He glanced once more around their bedroom, flickered his gaze over her long brown hair and laced up his boots.

“Brenda Walsh, we could have really been something.”

“We were something, Dylan,” she said.

Dylan sniggered and shook his head, forcing his lead feet toward the entranceway.

A crushing weight on his heart led him back to where she stood, looking as miserable as he felt.

“Do you hate me?” she whispered, brokenly.

“Bren, no,” his voice cracked, “I don’t hate you. I’ll admit I’m not your biggest fan right now, but I don’t hate you.”

“Then stay one more night and you can leave tomorrow,” she insisted.

“I can’t do that, Brenda. I either stay all the nights or no more nights. There is no in-between.”

Her gaze grew cold.

“Fine. Then just go and get it over with,” Brenda said, her normally cheerful voice coated in enough steel to build the USS Dolphin.

“Brenda, if I walk out this door now, I will never come back,” he warned, slinging the duffle over his shoulders while one hand cupped the back of her neck. “I’ll be out of your life for good.”

“Maybe it’s better that way,” she said with forced confidence easily betrayed in her forlorn countenance, shrugging off his hand.

The lump in his throat danced as he swallowed, pain sketched so deeply into his features that it was a wonder she didn’t notice. 

“Yeah. Maybe it is. Goodbye, Brenda.”

He stepped over the threshold into deafening silence. Inching down the stairs, he briefly paused by the exterior of the flat to regain his crumbling composure. One palm pressed against cold stucco brickwork, Dylan turned back around.

The bright red door slammed in his face, any whisper of a goodbye drowned in the bitter wind of a November afternoon.

xx 

_Sorry, Dylan. You still had a lot of growing up to do._

_But who says you can’t go home again?_

\-- RIP, Luke Perry.

  
  
  



End file.
